


The Salary of Virtue

by SharpestRose



Category: Ned Kelly (2003)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-07
Updated: 2011-07-07
Packaged: 2017-10-21 03:33:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,825
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/220449
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SharpestRose/pseuds/SharpestRose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everything starts somewhere.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Salary of Virtue

Daniel Kelly was thirteen years old on the afternoon in late February when he was watching his mate Steve Hart jump the high gates at the Wangaratta station on a skittish horse and a borrowed saddle. Everyone knew Steve was the only one who could do such impressive tricks, and Dan was enjoying the spectacle very much.

Dan was small for his age, with a sharp clever face and a sensitive mouth. His older brothers, Ned and Jim, were both big and broad and strong, and Dan harboured hopes that by the end of his boyhood he would be the same. Steve was lightly built, too, a jockey's body and a horseman's brain. The Harts had 200 acres and Steve's future was sound and solid but Dan had heard him complain of it on numerous occasions.

"A long life and a dull one. I'd rather not bother at all than end up a copy of Dad, with every day mapped out before his eyes are open in the morning. Might as well be dead, really."

Steve was always full of bravado like that, sweeping comments that didn't mean a lot underneath the words. Dan understood, though, because sometimes his life felt like an endless gray horizon, washed as colourless as the old clothes on the washing line at home. There were some good things to break the drabness, though. Like watching Steve and his horseback tricks.

Then good things came to an end, as good things do, when Tom Lloyd rode up on Jack Lloyd's horse and gave Dan a thick ear and told him in no uncertain terms that if Dan took Tom's palomino again then Dan would have a broken arm. Steve climbed off the mare with a scowl at Tom, scuffing his boots in the dirt and scritching the horse between the ears. He had a piece of hay stuck in his hair at the back, and Dan leant over to pluck it free. Steve caught the movement and smiled in thanks before turning back to Tom and glaring.

"We didn't do her any harm, she's wasted on you."

"If I didn't have a message from your Dad telling you that you and Dick and Rachel are all wanted back at your place, I'd knock you down and teach you a lesson," Tom spat. Steve shrugged.

"I'm not my brother's keeper, nor my sister's, and I haven't a bloody clue where they might be. Clear off, will you, take your precious horse that you guard so well I've had her out every day this week."

Tom contented himself with giving Dan another smack around the head before departing with the horses, and Dan gave his burgeoning vocabulary a work-out insulting his cousin's retreating back. Then he turned to Steve, a quizzical expression on his face.

"If you've had her out every day, why'd you say you needed my help to get her?"

Steve rubbed at the sunburn on the back of his neck and grinned at Dan. "I only said that to get Tom riled up, because he knows I could have done it. Wanted your help so I could show off to you with my jumping, didn't I?"

Dan laughed at the frankness of the answer, cuffing Steve lightly about the head and envying the few inches in height Steve had over him.

"Want to come over and have a bite? You can entertain me while I get the chopping done," Steve offered. Dan shook his head.

"Nah, me sister Maggie's bringing her baby over. I'd have another thick ear to match the one from Tom if I didn't turn up for dinner. Anyway, it looks like it's going to pour, you'll get no chopping done this day."

"Ah, well, you might be right. Don't really want to head home if Dad's looking for me, don't fancy having to answer to him until he's had his dinner brandy and calmed his temper. Can I come back with you?"

Dan gave Steve a droll look. "'Course you can, you know you don't have to ask."

Steve shrugged. His hair, slightly overlong and in need of a trim, was streaked fair from days in the sun without a hat, and he had to pause in conversation occasionally to flick the heavy locks out of his eyes. Doing so now, he gave Dan another sunny smile. Dan, his ear still smarting from Tom's bullying, smiled back.

"Fine pair of dappled bays you boys rode up on," Dan's mother said in a sharp voice an hour later, as she ladled carrots onto his plate.

"It's all right, Ma, old man Wick knows we've got 'em, there won't be trouble," Dan answered. "Ta for the tin o' sardines, Maggie."

"Never known any who could put them away like you can," Magaret Skilling said, bouncing her tiny daughter on her lap as she talked to her youngest brother, the only one currently not inside a prison. "P'raps if you eat enough of 'em you'll actually fit into your shirts and jackets for a change."

Dan ducked his head, for though the comment was meant in gentle teasing it was more than true. Dan's small stature was not helped any by the large clothing handed down to him from brothers and stepfathers alike.

"Careful, though. No lass'll kiss a boy who stinks of canned fish," Ellen put in, seeing her son's discomfort. "Be sure to chew on something sweet after."

That got a giggle out of Kate, who was young enough to think boys horrid and old enough to play catch-and-kiss against them in the paddocks.

"Tom was round here looking for you," she said.

"Yeah, found me too," grumbled Dan, rubbing at his still-red ear. Steve had a mouthful of potato quickly to cover his grin.

"Uncle John says the wages of sin is death," Grace said, looking at Steve with a very serious expression. Steve, equally serious, gave a sage nod and swallowed his food.

"I agree with you, Grace. Which means the wages of sin are rather like the salary of virtue."

Grace pouted her small mouth for a moment as she considered this, and then she smiled. Steve's serious expression broke into a cheerful grin and he patted the little girl on the shoulder. Dan raised his mug.

"I'll drink to that."

"Mind you take those horses back tonight, else you might find that your borrowing doesn't go down as smoothly next time," Ellen said, her expression shrewd. Dan and Steve nodded obligingly, no trace of guilt on their downy faces, and that was a sure sign they were breaking some law or another.

They didn't rush off to ride back to the Wick farm, either, playing a lackadaisical game of football around and over the washing line. Ellen cleared her throat a few times but they pretended not to hear her, and after a while she gave up. Dan was too anxious to be like his brothers, to live up to some standard he'd decided had been set. And Steve, well, the boy was no better; able to charm any horse and willing to use the skill any way he fancied. Pair of wags, and they egged each other on just by keeping company together.

"Reckon your Mam knows those two horses aren't Wick's?" Steve asked when Ellen had gone back inside.

"'Course she does. Nothing gets past her." Dan's voice was proud. "She's right, too, we should take 'em somewhere tonight so they're not here come morning."

"We could tie them in the bush and sell them tomorrow," Steve suggested, so after a few more kicks and throws of the worn leather ball the pair of them set out.

Walking back, Steve was quiet for a few miles, Dan complaining idly about the mud on the road and chewing on a long stem of grass.

"Nice night," he commented. "Don't you think, Steve?"

But even this failed to get a spoken response. Steve seemed to be in a world of his own, watching the brightness of the stars in the late-summer sky.

"All right, that's enough. What're you thinking of, then?" Dan asked, exasperated. Steve stopped, leaning on the split-rail fence that bordered the wide lane.

"Just thinkin'."

"Yes, I guessed that on account of the fact you weren't talking, y'fool," Dan said companionably, leaning against the fence beside Steve. The air was surprisingly clear and still, considering how much it had looked like it was going to rain only a few hours before. "Question is _what_ you're thinking in that head o' yours."

"I was thinkin'..." Steve said in a measured, careful sort of voice. "I wonder what sardines taste like second-hand."

Dan's breath seemed to falter and lose direction somewhere in his throat, the stem of grass stilling between his lips and then removed as he tossed it to the ground. "Yeah?"

"Yeah," Steve said, and Steve was a few inches taller than Dan so as he moved in closer he ducked his head a bit, but Dan had thought of the height difference himself and was stretching up, so their mouths collided faster than either of them expected. Muffling a small grunt of surprise, Steve tilted his face and put a hand against Dan's hip. Dan was trying to remember how to breathe and stay upright at the same time, and Steve wasn't helping Dan's memory with his insistent, gentle mouth.

"Can't tell what the sardines taste like if you don't open your trap," he murmured, a laugh pushing the breath out to tickle Dan's skin lightly. Dan just nodded, because apparently words had gone the way of the rest of his brain and a spoken response was out of the question.

Dan had only kissed two girls in his life, Sarah Tuckey and Bess Smart, and this was an entirely different kettle of stew. For one thing, neither Sarah nor Bess had smelt like leather and sweat and horses, and for another Steve seemed to be trying his best not to laugh.

"What, then?" Dan asked, pulling away a little (but not too much, because Steve's hand was still on his hip and that was the trouble, it was _still_ and Dan wanted it to move, had never wanted anything so much in all his memory).

"Can't taste the sardines at all, just grass and tank water," Steve answered. "You'll have to get another can sometime so I can check again."

Then it was Dan's turn to be laughing, but that didn't last long either because Steve seemed to be better at remembering things than Dan was and suddenly realised that his hand wasn't doing much just sitting there on the waist of Dan's trousers.

The night was far from young by the time Ellen stirred at the sound of the two boys creeping in and lying down to sleep. Shaking her head, she rolled over. Pair of wags, those kids were, but better wags together than alone.


End file.
